This painting can be viewed as either the start of finish of my Trudy series. All the pieces can be viewed in any order, with each order seeming to present a different narrative.
Watercolor and paper 5.5×8.5
Tag: painter
Tan Lines
Between all my recent travel and getting ready to go on the road, I realized that I had not done a piece on my French Cotton paper in a while.
“As a child I spent my entire summers barefoot, right up until the day before school started. I think that’s why as an adult I like beaches so much, they are very different in Europe. ”
French cotton paper & Watercolors 7×10
Dior Glasses
There is a pleasure to exploring when on the road. A different but equally satisfying thing is to have places all over the world where one is known, a regular. This is a self portrait of me at one of my favorite places while on the road.
Watercolor & Multi Media Paper 9×12
Caro Diario
On the road. This paper was just laying around. Although it was generally being put to use as scrap paper, it is landscape style. It was nothing fancy nor great but I decided to improvise part of my trip diary on it. It is not whether something is frame worthy or selleble but the process itself which brings me joy and is the personal payoff for me. I was pleased with the results.
Tani
First painting from on the road. I am very pleased with this, even more so as I had far from ideal lightening and worked on a counter.
Tani 5.5×8.5 watercolor and paper
groovy
About to hit the road again.
Here is new 7×10 Watercolor & French Cotton paper
Birthday
“Let It Bleed” cake, drinks, art, music and some self portraits, uneasy jet travel
Self portrait “At the Party” 9×12
Collarbone
This piece is 9×12 Watercolor on multi media paper (98 lb) . I am very pleased with the results. I do not work any magic on the photos of my work. I only use my phone as the photos are meant to give the gist of a piece, often in person there is even more going on with a work.
Serenade
Emotion is the most important aspect of all my work, regardless of subject matter. Once one has an artistic mission or aesthetic in mind, next comes putting it into practice.
In chatting with some of my direct peers, something which seems obvious is reiterated throughout our ongoing conversations. We all approach the craft of painting differently.
For myself, i see the painting in my head done before starting it. Some of my pals know what they want to do but feel their way towards it as they go. With one piece they want to convey joy or sadness, established subject aside what will they do over the course of creation to facilitate it is what they feel their way towards while creating.
They get great joy in seeing what happens over the course of working. I would not want to work that way but they like the unfolding mystery aspect of it. To them, it would seem boring to know largely in advance whats going to appear out from under the brush but i never feel at shortage of joy when painting.
The one thing we all have in common is joy in the process regardless of how different it may be for each of us.
I want a discenible style/voice but to never lapse into mere mannerism.One way i avoid this is by challenging myself. I see the painting in my head, i know that a certain color is perfect for the background or I can get effect of dappled light on skin using a favorite yellow. I purposely will then use a different color and make it work. Like some of the dissonance in a Prokofiev piece, it works despite itself and becomes an important, naturally integrated aspect.
Often when giving myself one of these challenges, during break I will be chatting with someone.
“I am trying some new stuff with this piece (my shorthand for one of my self challenges)”.
The finished work often does not look terribly different from any of its siblings. A potential dramatic let down to whomever I might have mentioned it to. Personally though, it is of great value. I got what I wanted without having to resort to now established methods & tricks.
I used French cotton paper for this piece. It is 7×10. It behaves different from both the multi media papers I use and the watercolor velum 5×8 which has become a favorite. The soundtrack was largely Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s “I Talk with the Spirits”
In a Moment
Renaissance painters largely did Royal/High Society portraits along with the obligatory religious work. It was important for the portraiture to look like the subject. However, there could be subtext either positive or negative in the clothes the subject was wearing, the accoutrements around them. These send their own narrative out into the world.
The painter locked in the subject’s position, then worked from there. Now, with camera/photos, people expect, if the subject is leaning their head to the left, then paint it exactly that way.
I have often written about the relationship between artist & model and audience expectation. Another aspect which has changed is positioning.
I want my portraits to look like the subject and I include every little bit of minutia that I see, from a blemish to an about to fall off button. when not working from a live subject, I do not rigidly adhere though, to position offered up in the photo .
Once I did a commission, working from a photo. When I was done, it was the spitting image.
“Oh, my head had been tilted back slightly more in the photo.”
It had not been a flattering angle, chosen because it decreased a chin but increased nostrils as focal point. A strange argument to me, as angle aside, it looked just like her. Most people would never see both the photo and the portrait.
Not by way of excuse but as part of my usual modus operandi, I do sometimes slightly alter an angle. It is as if I am capturing the moment before or right after that in the photo. Depending upon the naturalness of the pose, at other times I do not alter a thing.
She took possession of the portrait. Upon hanging it in her home, she snapped at photo of it on the wall. At one of the fuller cocktail parties she faux-casually brought up her portrait. Wanting some justification for her initial cool reaction she had been eager to show a party goer or two the photo I had worked from and the finished portrait both of which rested within her phone.
“Oh, that is great, it looks just like you, especially in the eyes!”
After a few more comments like this, she felt better. She put away the photos of twins, born a minute apart.
“Blue Pillow”
Watercolor & multi media paper 9×12
Paper Life Painting 